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gizmo

J Mysterio wrote: »

One of the biggest benefits of digital purchases is not having to change discs all the time. Saves you getting off you ass.

Kind of odd though that you cant buy a physical copy of a game, install it, and then not have to use the disc again.

GameStops days sure are numbered, and they deserve to be hammeted frankly. The options going forward will be Smyths or Argos, retailers which have a diverse offering.

That would require the need for a serial key of some description to bind the purchase to your account. It's probably coming at some point but it would be a fairly loud signal from publishers that they're actively preparing for the demise of retailers, at least in their current form.

On the subject of stores, while Gamestop clearly take the piss, there's a kind of unsung underclass of local independent retail game stores, in the US at least, which have managed to survive while GS and co ate up the majority of market share. Polygon had a great feature on them back in July, "What it costs to run an independent video game store", that was really interesting.

Varik

gizmo wrote: »

That would require the need for a serial key of some description to bind the purchase to your account. It's probably coming at some point but it would be a fairly loud signal from publishers that they're actively preparing for the demise of retailers, at least in their current form.

It's the origional Xbox One until that got shouted down.

Would actually have loved if it was that way, same for the future with Playstation.

You'd not be tied to the one store but you'd have the benefit of having a digital library; Like steam on PC I can buy off amazon/gamestop/digital retailers and just enter the key.

Grumpypants

Varik wrote: »

It's the origional Xbox One until that got shouted down.

Would actually have loved if it was that way, same for the future with Playstation.

You'd not be tied to the one store but you'd have the benefit of having a digital library; Like steam on PC I can buy off amazon/gamestop/digital retailers and just enter the key.

Was just thinking the same, it was the original plan for the Xbox One. I thought it was a great idea but the plebs couldn't see the potential. Every time I have to get up and rummage for a disk I curse them.

gizmo

Varik wrote: »

It's the origional Xbox One until that got shouted down.

Would actually have loved if it was that way, same for the future with Playstation.

You'd not be tied to the one store but you'd have the benefit of having a digital library; Like steam on PC I can buy off amazon/gamestop/digital retailers and just enter the key.

It is indeed. What made that move so odd at the time though was that it came from Microsoft, the platform holder, out of the two parties involved the company whose business was most likely to be affected by the shift in the long term.

I can only assume they had done a significant amount of research and forward planning, determining that, all things considered, they would have come out on top. I mean, they'd eat the higher CDN costs in the long term if users ignored the discs after the initial install and relied upon XBL for future downloads. On top of that, they'd have missed out on the ~30% cut they would have gotten from the original purchase at retail which would have offset this. Then again, in the longer term, they'd probably be attracting more users to their storefront which would mean more sales and hence, more cuts.

Then on the retail side, the solution would have essentially killed the second hand market, something that would be catastrophic to the likes of Gamestop and other specialist retailers which would, I imagine, do some form of damage to their ability to sell the actual hardware to the public?

Meanwhile, the publishers would probably be happy to take the platform-holder cut if it meant killing the second hand market. Not really surprising they let MS take the bullet on this one though, especially given how the public reacted and ultimately viewed it as a limitation of the console rather than a potential benefit in the end.

Benzino

It was the wrong time to introduce it, people were still struggling from the crash and second hand market was a great way for them to play the latest games on a tight budget.

Also if I recall correctly, MS originally wanted you to log in online every day to verify licenses or something like that. It was stupid from MS.

Varik

Grumpypants wrote: »

Was just thinking the same, it was the original plan for the Xbox One. I thought it was a great idea but the plebs couldn't see the potential. Every time I have to get up and rummage for a disk I curse them.

So is our curse.

oblige noblesse

gizmo wrote: »

I can only assume they had done a significant amount of research and forward planning, determining that, all things considered, they would have come out on top. I mean, they'd eat the higher CDN costs in the long term if users ignored the discs after the initial install and relied upon XBL for future downloads. On top of that, they'd have missed out on the ~30% cut they would have gotten from the original purchase at retail which would have offset this. Then again, in the longer term, they'd probably be attracting more users to their storefront which would mean more sales and hence, more cuts.

Their cut is around the same as Sony and valve for their respective stores, all around ~30%. Don't know about EA with Origin or CD Projekt with GOG.

wotzgoingon

Grumpypants wrote: »

Was just thinking the same, it was the original plan for the Xbox One. I thought it was a great idea but the plebs couldn't see the potential. Every time I have to get up and rummage for a disk I curse them.

I'm with you there. I had no issue with the way MS first announced how the Xbox One was going to operate when it was near time to release.

I have no idea why there was uproar.

Penn

wotzgoingon wrote: »

I'm with you there. I had no issue with the way MS first announced how the Xbox One was going to operate when it was near time to release.

I have no idea why there was uproar.

It was so poorly explained and presented and while they did announce some good features, some of the other aspects like having to be always online or once every 24 hours and always connected Kinect was a huge worry for people. And although the family sharing stuff was a good idea, the restrictions on it and how it was explained was just a disaster.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's ideas failed because Microsoft failed to explain it in a half decent way.

CatInABox

Benzino wrote: »

Also if I recall correctly, MS originally wanted you to log in online every day to verify licenses or something like that. It was stupid from MS.

You mean like an always online console? Four years after the release of the Xbox One and looking back at the furore at the time is comical. The biggest games of this generation are almost all online based.

An offline mode that would last 7 to 10 days would have dealt with that issue, the same that steam has.

Benzino

CatInABox wrote: »

You mean like an always online console? Four years after the release of the Xbox One and looking back at the furore at the time is comical. The biggest games of this generation are almost all online based.

An offline mode that would last 7 to 10 days would have dealt with that issue, the same that steam has.

It's grand saying that now, but what if you wanted to play a new game and XBL was down or your broadband provider had outages? PSN and XBL had a lot of outages for the first year or so of the console's life.

7 to 10 days would have been better, but that's not what they proposed, pretty sure it was every 24 hours.

We are much better equipped for this sort of thing now, as are Sony and MS who seem to have sorted out their networking reliability.

Was a disaster of a reveal, even topped the awful reveal of the WiiU where everybody thought the controller was the entire console.

Retr0gamer

Honestly think that Microsoft where just a little too early in their announcement. They also handled it extremely poorly.

I also believe Sony were heading the same way and then threw Microsoft under the bus by changing their own system. And it worked spectacularly.

CatInABox

Benzino wrote: »

It's grand saying that now, but what if you wanted to play a new game and XBL was down or your broadband provider had outages? PSN and XBL had a lot of outages for the first year or so of the console's life.

7 to 10 days would have been better, but that's not what they proposed, pretty sure it was every 24 hours.

We are much better equipped for this sort of thing now, as are Sony and MS who seem to have sorted out their networking reliability.

Was a disaster of a reveal, even topped the awful reveal of the WiiU where everybody thought the controller was the entire console.

Yeah, pretty sure they said 24 hours, which would have been a disaster. The entire thing was surreal though, they announced this restrictive massive change to how people were going buy and play their games, but then mere minutes later, when the press started asking questions about it, they actually had no answers. One exec actually had to say that they were still waiting to decide on a major point.

It was a huge, gigantic, epic communications disaster. It's something that should be thought in schools as an example of how not to announce something.

gizmo

Varik wrote: »

Their cut is around the same as Sony and valve for their respective stores, all around ~30%. Don't know about EA with Origin or CD Projekt with GOG.

Aye and if Sony had done the same thing, the same reasoning would apply. What separates them from the publishers who have their own store, however, is that those companies can't sell directly on the respective platforms.

ERG89

CatInABox wrote:

It was a huge, gigantic, epic communications disaster. It's something that should be thought in schools as an example of how not to announce something.

I do like what Phil Spencer is doing now even if Microsoft have a long, tough road ahead. He seems to be far more down to earth and genuine than Don Mattrick. The X seems to be a genuine upgrade performance wise based on early impressions & having a backwards compatible console is something I'd care about anyway.

Retr0gamer

CatInABox wrote: »

Yeah, pretty sure they said 24 hours, which would have been a disaster. The entire thing was surreal though, they announced this restrictive massive change to how people were going buy and play their games, but then mere minutes later, when the press started asking questions about it, they actually had no answers. One exec actually had to say that they were still waiting to decide on a major point.

It was a huge, gigantic, epic communications disaster. It's something that should be thought in schools as an example of how not to announce something.

It didn't help that they said that they couldn't change it since it would be a systems level change then announced later that it wouldn't be implemented.

Sony basically sat back and did nothing while Microsoft self destructed. They didn't have to do anything. Snuck in a few anti consumer things themselves while the focus was on MS. Great opportunity to tie online play to a subscription.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It didn't help that they said that they couldn't change it since it would be a systems level change then announced later that it wouldn't be implemented.

Sony basically sat back and did nothing while Microsoft self destructed. They didn't have to do anything. Snuck in a few anti consumer things themselves while the focus was on MS. Great opportunity to tie online play to a subscription.

Don't forget accidentally hitting Delete on the presentation slides touting the benefits of the totally-was-never-going-to-be-bundled-but-kinda-sorted-was PS Eye, conveniently allowing them to undercut MS by $100 on the bundle price. :pac:

Grumpypants

They made a few screw ups. The first was the TV,TV,TV reveal. Barely a mention that it played games, then making a balls of the digital focus and then the dashboard layout on the console being so bad it put off lots of potential buyers, I remember struggling to even find where my games and apps were on the console.

I still struggle finding things with the layout.

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It didn't help that they said that they couldn't change it since it would be a systems level change then announced later that it wouldn't be implemented.

Same with the Kinect. It absolutely had to be connected and on all the time and no possible way of playing the Xbox One without it... then announced later that it wouldn't be implemented.

The Kinect was something that so many people didn't even want let alone want connected all the time which drove the price of the console up €100 against the PS4. But then by taking it away and not having it be always connected and on, developers stopped creating features to implement it (because some gamers wouldn't have it plugged in) which led to pretty much the demise of the Kinect altogether, with the XB1S and XB1X not even having a dedicated connection for it, instead you have to buy an adapter and use one of the USB slots.

Microsoft's biggest rivals in 2013 were Microsoft. They just could not get their sh*t together to extol the benefits and advantages of their features in a way that didn't put people off. They've improved dramatically in recent years with Phil Spencer, and it's hard not to wonder what would have happened if he'd been the guy in 2013. But man... they really messed up in 2013 simply by not having some of the new features be "optional". You had to be online every 24 hours. You had to buy the Kinect with the console. You had to have the Kinect always plugged in and turned on. If you brought one of your games to a friend's house, you had to sign in as yourself and I still can't even remember the rigmarole of what happens after that and how you get it back to play it yourself or when you have to be logged in etc.

kunst nugget

The Kinect became less of a fun additional add-on and more of a 'big brother is watching you' in-house CCTV. I'm increasingly wary of how big companies leech information and data off us and how we're willing participants in it. We're giving our phones our fingerprints and now we're going to let them use facial recognition software on us that can read our moods just so we can post sad poo emojis…

Dyr

a few years later and cortana is sitting on your laptop, listening at all times and nobody raises a fuss...they learned from their mistake

CatInABox

Bambi wrote: »

a few years later and cortana is sitting on your laptop, listening at all times and nobody raises a fuss...they learned from their mistake

And worse, people spend more than €100 on an Amazon Echo, so that you can talk to Alexa. Madness when you compare the reactions, so much has changed in 4 years or so.

Dyr

CatInABox wrote: »

And worse, people spend more than €100 on an Amazon Echo, so that you can talk to Alexa. Madness when you compare the reactions, so much has changed in 4 years or so.

Oh I think the outrage over always on snooper Xbox was well justified it's just funny Microsoft figured out a way to mitigate it

CatInABox

Another blow for retailers. Destiny 2 was more than 50% digital. That's from Activisions latest financials, which are pretty bleak for B&M stores.

They think that the rate people are moving to digital sales is increasing faster nowadays too.

"We mentioned last year that our historical digital mix was about 20 to 25 per cent for Call of Duty and more in the 30 to 40 per cent range for Destiny and Overwatch on console," fellow Activision boss Spencer Neumann continued, adding more colour. "Historically, we've been seeing that digital mix increase at about five points a year. With Destiny 2 digital at over 50 per cent console sell-through so far, we believe we're seeing some acceleration in that digital shift."

More here.

As a side note, can you even get physical PC games these days?

Varik

CatInABox wrote: »

As a side note, can you even get physical PC games these days?

You can, but I can't think of a single physical release that wasn't still tied to some online platform.

Robert ninja

Varik wrote: »

You can, but I can't think of a single physical release that wasn't still tied to some online platform.

Indeed but it's still cheaper to burn gog releases to discs yourself than it is to ship something from online.

Sonics2k

Sonics2k wrote: »

It's possible. They reacted to the news when Nostalrius was shut down by inviting the team to a meeting at Blizzard, which according to the Nost guys went very well, however since then Blizzard have gone totally silent on it.

And in news that quite surprised a lot of people, Blizzard have indeed officially announced they will be opening Classic Servers in the near future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcZyiYOzsSw

degrassinoel

Runic games are no more..

Hey everyone,

It’s been over nine years since a rag-tag team of 17 developers helped open Runic Games. We’ve been so lucky for the community that has supported us and made us successful. Thanks to that support, we have had the chance to meet and work with the best people in the world. Our team here at Runic has released three successful games, and over that time we have seen many changes; team members got married, kids were born, but the most important thing is that we have become a family.

I’m sorry to say that today will be Runic’s last day open. Our focus is on our family here, and helping them find a new place to call home. If you are in games and looking for some of the best talent in the industry, please email jobs@runicgames.com.

For those that love the Torchlight series, there will be some news coming. And for all our fans, our community and multiplayer services will keep running even after the studio's lights go off.

It has been an amazing experience. To my family here at Runic, I know we won’t be far from each other, and I’ll miss seeing you all every week.

You haven’t heard the last of us,

Marsh Lefler
Studio Head

but all may not be lost, see the bold print

Skerries

Starcraft II going free to play

Wings of Liberty Campaign

The award-winning StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty story campaign is free in its entirety.

Versus Mode

Access Unranked and Versus AI for free; unlock Ranked with 10 first wins of the day in Unranked or Versus AI.

Commanders up to Level 5

Kerrigan, Raynor, and Artanis are completely free, and all other Commanders are free up to level 5.

marcbrophy

^^^
Your link is missing a ":" Skerries

wotzgoingon

marcbrophy wrote: »

^^^
Your link is missing a ":" Skerries

Good catch, never spotted that. Works now.